Just as Big Tobacco has rolled out new e-cigarette products across the US, the World Health Organization has expressed “grave concern” over the industry's escalating involvement in the e-cigarette market in a recent report, “warning that the financially powerful companies could...use the current tolerance of the new products as a gateway to ensnaring a new generation of smokers at a time when the public health authorities seem to be winning the battle against tobacco.”

A slew of major tobacco companies have been launching e-cig brands including Imperial Tobacco, Altria Group, British American Tobacco, China Tobacco, Indian Tobacco Company and Phillip Morris International, which recently acquired one of Britain’s biggest e-cigarette makers, Nicocigs. Altria and Reynolds have made much headway, dominating about 25 percent of e-cig sales in the US market with their MarkTen and Vuse products. However, Lorillard still dominates with its Blu brand.

While the jury is largely still out on whether e-cigarettes pose a health risk like traditional cigarettes, the WHO claims that the new nicotine-laced devices do indeed pose a health risk to the public.Continue reading...

1 in 88 children born today will have autism, according to the CDC's latest prevalence report. April is awareness month for the fastest growing developmental disorder in the U.S., and brands are doing their part to shine a (blue) light on those affected and contribute to research.

JetBlue’s “Wings for Autism” program works with local autism awareness groups to aid families with special needs children while traveling. The program, which was initiated at Boston's Logan International Airport, allows families to familiarize their children with the flying process ahead of time, including the sights and sounds, which austistic children are particularly sensitive to. On May 6, the program will be featured at Long Beach and Burbank airports, with plans to host a similar event at New York's JFK International Airport later this year.Continue reading...

An estimated one-third of American children are overweight or obese. In support of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, the Saucony brand is joining the race against this epidemic with the launch of Saucony Run4Good — the running industry’s first iPhone app raising money and awareness around this crisis.

With every mile, runners earn money for community youth running programs fast-tracking kids back to health. “As a brand focused on runners, innovation and social responsibility, we believe the Saucony Run4Good app offers a new world of possibilities to engage with our community in a relevant, innovative and meaningful way while inspiring a strong unity of purpose to make a difference for our kids,” said Chris Lindner, Saucony's CMO and SVP for commerce.

The statistics on U.S. childhood obesity are alarming: almost 20% of children ages 6 to 11 and 18% of those 12 to 19 are considered obese. The CDC estimates that over the past three decades, childhood obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and adolescents 12-19 years, and more than tripled for children 6-11 years.Continue reading...

There are a lot of product "placements" in Contagion, logos and names that appear in passing, backgrounds and without a great degree of consequence. A crack about Taco Bell here, a Mazda, Audi, or Chevy logo there. But there are really only two or three "brands" that find themselves the focus of the film, and one of them has genuine reason to be sick about the slanderous way Contagion portrays it.

"The Minnesota Department of Health was not officially involved with the film in any way," John Stieger, the department's communications director, told brandchannel. If you've seen the new #1 movie at the US box office, that shouldn't come as a surprise.Continue reading...

On the day that the Obama administration had to ruefully acknowledge that the unemployment rate is rising again – to 9.2% in June – the US Association of National Advertisers tried a clever tactic that attempted to leverage renewed fears about joblessness to advance what probably ranks as the ANA’s No. 1 public-policy concern these days.

The ANA produced a study purporting to show that a cross-agency federal proposal to curtail marketing of certain products to kids could translate to the loss of at least 74,000 American jobs in the retailing, marketing and manufacturing of foods and beverages that the government believes contribute to childhood obesity.Continue reading...